The thing about how Rhaegar “murmured a woman’s name” with his last breath…people seem to fall into two main camps about that, with some believing that he said Lyanna, some believing he said Visenya, and maybe one or two making cases for some other name, like Elia or Rhaella. And I’m personally reasonably confident that 1) we won’t find out what he said and 2) it doesn’t actually matter. But honestly? As much as I know this isn’t the case…I would love it if that name wasn’t any of those names, but Rhaenys. Rhaenys, his eldest child, who loved him and whom he failed, whom he condemned to death by chasing dreams instead of doing his duty to his family.
Visenya didn’t exist, but Rhaenys did. And Rhaenys is achingly real in the story, this little girl that named her kitten after the dragon ridden by her namesake’s brother and that hid under her father’s bed when she was scared, that screamed and kicked and fought for her life when she was dragged out, only to be stabbed over and over again while no one came to save her, least of all Rhaegar. She’s painfully present in the soul of the story, because even as she’s so infrequently brought up, what happened to her remains the seminal trauma of the Sack of King’s Landing. She’s the embodiment of all those butchered innocents, and her death is bigger than any one person that had a hand in it: Ned Stark has nightmares about her years after the fact, long after his reconciliation with Robert. The memory of her corpse laid before the Iron Throne is seared into Thoros of Myr’s memory. Barristan Selmy is haunted by the idea that Robert smiled at the red ruins of her body. There is no justice for that. Nothing will ever be enough to make up for how this little princess was murdered. And so I think it would be incredibly powerful for someone to spare a thought for her before that brutality. The only person we know that ever considered what would happen to her was Tywin Lannister! Whose consideration was due to the fact he was ordering her death! She was a toddler. She deserved someone that was actually concerned about her.
Rhaenys is defined largely by two things in the story: that she was little and that she was Rhaegar’s daughter. Ned refers to her as the “little princess” and “Rhaegar’s little girl”. Varys tells us the one actually story we know about her, and he, too, reiterated those same two things: Prince Rhaegar’s daughter. A precious little thing. The part about her being a little girl is obviously the extent of the point. But the part about her being Rhaegar’s daughter…as of now, it’s sort of an abstract point. It’s disconnected from everything else. We know she loved him, but what about the other way around? What about the man that abandoned his daughter?
At this point in the story, the idea of chasing prophecy has been hammered in again and again as a fool’s errand. People’s dreams and beliefs and hopes are crushed repeatedly. So it matters to me that Rhaegar dies knowing he fucked up - still believing in his prophecies, still believing that he needed that third child…but aware of what his choices meant for his existing children. Understanding that he failed his living daughter because of his desperation for a third child. Conviction that he was doing the right thing even as he dies is interesting. That conviction being so arrogant that he can’t be bothered to spare a thought for his daughter? That’s just horrible. Rhaegar didn’t love Elia. Neither did he love Lyanna. But Rhaenys, his only daughter, the one that specifically went to hide under his bed instead of going anywhere else? I can find Rhaegar compelling as a man that uses people in pursuit of a goal and that doesn’t really have it in him to love people romantically. But I can’t care about him on any level if he didn’t love the daughter that loved him, trusted him, and believed he could protect her enough to regret his actions. Whether he felt he needed a Visenya is besides the point. Whether he had any feelings towards Lyanna is besides the point. No hypothetical child is worth more than a living one. No infatuation is worth any physical or emotional damage to a little girl. So only if Rhaegar’s dying thoughts and final words are about his daughter will I be able to view him as anything resembling an actual tragic figure.
Normally, I don’t have a problem distinguishing between disliking a character as a character and disliking them as a person. With Rhaegar? Those blur together, because I honestly can’t tell if Martin is aware of how unbelievably horrible his actions come across as, and I won’t be able to know definitively until after the entire series has been released. At it point, though, it’s as if he thinks, “he didn’t kidnap her!” and “he was trying to save the world!” justifies all the other horrible things he did, including almost certainly holding a no-longer-there-willingly Lyanna hostage. It’s not about love, it’s not about saving the world, it’s about arrogance and a conviction that he can do whatever he likes with no consequences because anyone that disagrees or is hurt by his actions just doesn’t understand. But him thinking about Rhaenys as he dies, the Rhaenys who will soon die barefoot and in her nightgown, crying and terrified as she’s dragged out from under her father’s bed? It won’t make anything better. It won’t make Rhaenys less dead or Rhaegar less of a terrible person. But it’ll at least make me care about him as a tragic character.
